Work hard, play hard at Insomnia Hungary

My whole week at Insomnia was perfectly matching with the agency’s name. In the daytime I worked on creative projects at the Insomnia office. In the evening and night I partied at Sziget Festival. There was not much time to sleep in between, but fuck it, I’ll sleep when I die.

I flew from Bulgaria via Turkey to Hungary with Turkish Airlines. After 30 flights in 7 months I think I have some frame of reference. This was one of the best so far. Excellent service, great food, smiling people and I even got an upgrade with extra leg space.

Eszter Domonkos (account at Insomnia) gave me a nice description how I could get from the airport to my place to sleep; a cool hipster mansion right next to the Parliament. In the evening I wrote my blogpost about Saatchi & Saatchi Bulgaria and took some rest. The next morning Eszter picked me up for day 1 at Insomnia. It’s an advertising agency where about 35 people are working in the most beautiful part of the city. The view from their balcony is just stunning.

Hello new colleagues! After a short introduction with the people (and the office dog) we sat down to talk about the plans for the week. Pretty cool plans. I was going to work on a new brief for a client (I’m not allowed to share the brand yet) and they gave me some ‘missions’. Challenges to become Hungarian. They gave me a GoPro so that I could show how my transformation was going during the week. I started with the mission ‘Cook Letcó’. Part of the challenge was that I needed to buy the ingredients at the market speaking Hungarian.

In the evening I invited my colleagues to the apartment. They brought all different kinds of (Hungarian) food and drinks and I cooked my first Letcó for them. It was the best Letcó ever. Maybe because it was my first one. But as I heard (and it’s on film) the rest of the Insomnia-crew enjoyed it as well.

After an interview with Bors, a big Hungarian newspaper, I started to work and create ideas for the new client. I worked alone for a while but also did brainstorms with other creatives and the creative director. In the end we had a very strong and bold concept. They’re gonna continue with that and present it to the client. I’m glad that something great came out. Now let’s hope that we can bring our ideas to life.

And then there’s Sziget Festival. This one was on my list for a long time. I was so lucky that Insomnia offered me a place to stay, food AND a festival ticket. A few months ago they made this video. It was so cool that I couldn’t say no. And I’m very thankful and happy that I did it. My favourite acts at the festival were: Bonobo, Stromae, The Prodigy, Guy Gerber and DARKSIDE. It was also my first time to go alone to a festival and I must say it was awesome. It’s super easy to meet up with cool people and you have the freedom to go and do whatever you want.

I also met my nephew, other friends and a fellow world traveler at Sziget. Meet: Maurice. He travels around the world with his brother. Their idea is called Birthdaysuit. They travel the world naked and trade t-shirts for food, a place to sleep and rides. Cool idea! Maurice contacted me 6 months ago when he saw my project on Adweek and we became Facebook friends. It was great to meet up for real this time. We both had endless travels stories to share. Good luck on your future travels buddy!

Dear Insomnia friends, I’m going to sleep now. Thanks so much for letting me live the dream with you.